Flight of the Hawk: The Plains

by W. Michael Gear

  CHAPTER 17

  The last three days had been confused, exhausting, and had left Tylor’s body aching, chafed, and sore like he hadn’t been in years. Strike that. He’d never been this sore. Not even on his long ride to Santa Fe across the southern plains.

  But then he’d never ridden like this, either.

  To everyone’s surprise, Gray Bear, Cunningham, and the two warriors had appeared in the middle of the storm’s first downpour. They brought with them news that an enemy war party was hot on their heels. Gray Bear, as taikwahni, had left no doubt: They were packing up and running.

  Right through the crashing downpour of the storm. In the dead of night. Surrounded by eye-searing flashes of lightning, deafened by thunder, blasted by wind that hit them like a hammer, and hail that might have been grapeshot fired by a field piece. Of them all, the hawk, tied atop the packs, seemed to have suffered the most until young Eagle’s Whistle figured out a wrapping to protect the bird.

  That they’d managed to pack as the heavens opened, that they’d cinched the packs, lodges, and tipi poles onto the balking horses, and headed straight into the maelstrom without a wreck, seemed—now that he could look back—like a miracle.

  He didn’t wonder that they could keep their course through the misery, chaos, and slashing black rain: Singing Lark rode up at the head of the cavalcade, leading the way. What was it about that girl? She just seemed to have a sense for direction that left him in awe. However she’d done it, she’d led the little band safely through the tempest.

  In the days since their departure, they’d traveled in the uplands, south and away from the Grand River. The route had stuck to the contours of the land, and Singing Lark carefully threaded them through herds of bison, her keen eye able to read the ebbing and flowing of the herds. She kept them well away from the masses of animals where they blackened the land. Individual old bulls, the occasional cow and calf, might flee from their path, but the Shoshoni made it clear that they didn’t want to be trapped in the center of a large herd.

  But why get close to the herds in the first place? What if the animals stampeded?

  Looking back, Tylor finally understood the tactic. He had seen the herds grazing across their backtrail. Covering and obliterating any signs of their passage.

  “Be hell fer the ’Rapaho to track us through that,” Cunningham had noted. “Never seen so many buffalo. After they pass, won’t even be a horse apple left to mark our trail, let alone a track.”

  Their rate of travel was determined by the horses. The Shoshoni, Tylor realized, were superb horsemen. Seemed they could read their animals with a sixth sense. Nor was it the stubby, hairy, Indian horses with their awkward confirmation and heavy loads that slowed the party, but Tylor’s black mare and Taipo packhorses that dragged at their pace. Though Cunningham’s mount, Cobble, seemed to hold his own.

  The bison weren’t the only wonder. Mixed in were miles of prairie dogs who stood and yipped on their mounds, the occasional deer, foxes, and coyotes, the odd pack of buffalo wolves, small herds of elk, and bands of pronghorn antelope. These were composed mostly of does and fawns, the erstwhile buck running along behind, wary lest one of the does escape his harem.

  Tylor had grown used to the barking kau! called in curiosity as a lone antelope buck watched them pass. Of all the plains creatures, Tylor decided that the pronghorn were the most beautiful with their tan, white, and black-patterned coloring. They had a stately grace, and when they ran, the speed and movement were pure poetry.

  Abruptly, yesterday, Singing Lark had turned them due south. The way traversing uncharted hills and ridges, some topped with occasional sandstone outcrops. Then down across shallow valleys with occasional patches of buffalo berry along the higher slopes. Streams here were bordered by bur oak, their bottoms thick with willows and the sentry-like cottonwoods. But beyond it all was the grass. Endless. Waving on the wind.

  Tylor remarked to Cunningham: “This country’s all the same. One ridge looks like the next. One creek like every other one we’ve passed. The only difference is size. One flows a little more water than the other.”

  Late that afternoon, reaching the top of a ridge from which five drainage heads radiated like fingers, Singing Lark—at the head of the column—pulled up. Her horse stood like a sentry in the wind, its tail blowing.

  The young woman remained fixed, leaned forward over her horse’s withers. She seemed to be contemplating something. Her look studious.

  One by one, they rode up beside her, reining in the blowing horses.

  Tylor followed the girl’s gaze to the southwest. The dark lumps on the far horizon brought him a feeling of relief.

  “Them black clouds?” Cunningham asked.

  “Mountains,” Tylor told him. “You’ve never been this far west, have you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Trust me. Those are mountains. Reminds me of the first time I laid eyes on the Sangre de Christos. Knew that Santa Fe was real.”

  Gray Bear slouched on his indomitable Moon Walker, the horse looking as fresh as ever. The chief pointed with his chin. “We call Aingakwe Hengard Oyabi.” Red Fir Tree Mountains. “Others call Duhubiti Katete.”

  “Black Hills,” Tylor translated, thinking of the crude maps he’d seen on Lisa’s desk.

  Looking to the west he could see successive lines of ridges, some with stands of pines that lay like dark shadows. The wind gusted, pulling at his hair and beard. Compared with the ocean of grass they’d crossed in the east, he liked this more rugged land, uplifted, with rocky outcrops of sandstone.

  “Country sure looks a sight more broken, John,” Cunningham told him.

  “Newe here?” Tylor asked, gesturing to the land before them.

  “Mostly Crow, Arapaho, and some Blackfeet,” Gray Bear told him.

  “How far to Newe?”

  Singing Lark finally broke her stare, shooting him a speculative look. “Long way, nadainapettsi.”

  The Shoshoni broke out into laughter, as if the stress of the long days on the trail had suddenly broken.

  “Nadaye . . . What in ’tarnal hell?” Cunningham asked.

  “Got me.” Tylor rubbed the back of his sunburned neck. The direction of the wind had pushed his long hair over his left shoulder, exposing skin that hadn’t seen the sun for months. “She’s been calling me that. Not sure what I did wrong, but it’s changed everything.”

  Whatever it was—going back to that day when he’d told her he wanted to make sure she was safe—it really chafed. Bothered him deep down. He wanted to apologize. Wasn’t sure what for. But, hell, he really missed the girl’s company. When, exactly, had that happened? And why did it seem so all-fired important?

  Singing Lark kicked her horse into a trot, leading the way down the long grassy slope.

  The grass was subtly different here, shorter, harder, and not as thickly packed as it had been further east. The soil, too, had changed—sandy and buff in color, the ridge tops being weathered from sandstone. In places down in the bottoms, however, the soil was gray, more clay, often layered with thin sheets of sandstone and shale.

  The air, too, was drier. The sun seemed to have a brighter shine, the light harshly crystalline and sharp.

  In the far northwest, two large plumes of smoke could be seen burning beyond the horizon.

  “Big fires,” Tylor speculated, using any distraction to take his mind off the way his bones ached; his tendons burned and his thighs felt as if they’d been pulled out of socket.

  Gray Bear signed, “Burn buffalo range.”

  “Who?” Cunningham asked.

  Gray Bear shrugged. “A’ni? Dua’ni?” Crow or Hidatsa.

  Tylor asked, “What did Singing Lark call me? Nadainap something?”

  Gray Bear spared him an amused look. He balanced his rifle and used both hands, signing, “man” and “woman” and then locking the fingers together. “Nadainape. Yes?”

  Cunningham, watching from the side, asked, “Coon? There something you want t
o tell me about when you and that little gal was alone?”

  “What? No!”

  Gray Bear was giving him a questioning look. He gestured first toward Singing Lark, then at Tylor, and laced his fingers together again.

  “I have always acted with respect.”

  Gray Bear signed, “What you ask her? Nakweekktu?”

  Tylor remembered that word. “Yes. She said something about that.”

  Gray Bear made that same maddening sign, locking his fingers together. He seemed to find something funny in the whole thing.

  “You asked her to marry you?” Cunningham gave Tylor an incredulous look.

  “No!” Tylor cried. He gestured his frustration. “Listen, I like the girl. I sure don’t want to marry her.”

  “No tell her,” Gray Bear said, his look going studiously blank. His hands made the sign for “Bad” and then “Insult.”

  Tylor felt his heart drop. “No. I just told her I wanted to keep her safe. That I didn’t want her to get taken by the Arapaho. Didn’t want to see her get hurt.”

  “Maybe that ain’t how she heard it, coon,” Cunningham said laconically.

  “She’s just a girl.”

  “Wa’ippe,” Gray Bear told him, that emotionless, disapproving look on his face. The word meant “woman.”

  “Damn it!” Tylor growled, his gaze going to where Singing Lark rode at the head of the procession. “What do I do?” He followed it with signs.

  Gray Bear shrugged, that amused look back in his eyes. “Give horse. Maybe beads.” Signed: “You could do worse.”

  “Reckon I’d go fer the beads,” Cunningham suggested. “Cheaper.”

  “Yeah, got to fix this,” Tylor said with a sigh. “How could she think I was proposing?”

  “She’s a pretty thing.”

  “She could be my daughter.”

  “Then I’d say you started at a right young age. Would have made you what? Nine? Ten at the most?” Cunningham chewed at the bottom of his mustache. “Coon, Gray Bear called her a woman. That’s what wa’ippe means. How old was that Hallie when you married her?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “What’s a couple o’ years.” Cunningham squinted. “ ’Course, yer makin’ the assumption she’d say yes. Now, my take? That gal’s somethin’ special. Figgering that, she’s smart enough to take yer proposal and tell ye a flat-out no. Hell, she could have any man she wanted. Why settle for the likes of you?”

  “She’s too young.”

  “Out hyar?” Cunningham laughed. “Think it through, coon. She’s been scouting fer this party. She’s survived an attack that kilt half of her people. Not mention she got us plumb across the plains. You’ve seen how the rest treat her? Ask her opinion? Listen when she speaks? That ain’t a child.”

  “And I ain’t interested in a wife,” Tylor mimicked Cunningham’s drawl.

  “Me? I been hoping that Whistling Wren might smile back at me. Lot of woman, that one. Strong. Figure she’d be a comfort of a cold night.”

  “I wish you success.”

  “Yep, well, like Gray Bear says, ye’ve insulted young Lark, there. Whatever you give her to make it up, it better be something really valuable. Maybe that bolt of cloth, or hell, a whole hank of them red beads.”

  Tylor winced as he shifted on his horse. He felt like his body was one giant bruise. How long did it take a man to toughen to the saddle? If only they could stop for a couple of days. Rest. Let his bones and joints heal. Was this really him? A couple of years back he’d lived on horseback for days while making the crossing from the Pawnee to Santa Fe.

  And yes, the time would allow him to apologize to Singing Lark without having the whole damn band watching him do so.

  He would give her a fine gift. That would solve the whole mess.

  CHAPTER 18

  Upon General Clark’s suggestion, Toby, his small command, and their horses had managed to commandeer a ride by keelboat as far as Fort Osage. The cargo had consisted of military supplies for the fort, and being an army charter, the patroon had made room for Toby.

  They were offloaded on the banks of the Missouri just below the post where it dominated the river’s southern side.

  The fort, built in 1808 to serve the Osage, was a pentagon-shaped, wooden-walled enclosure with blockhouses on four corners. It contained the officers’ quarters, enlisted men’s cabins, and blacksmith shop.

  Like a large triangle, the Osage factory, or government agency, was an attached, palisaded area with its own blockhouse on the north. It was here that Toby left Danford and Simms while he reported to a private at the gate. The man saluted, took Toby’s orders, and led him to Blockhouse One. Inside, the private knocked on a plank door, and opened it to announce, “Corporal Toby Johnson, Captain. Jist arrived with orders.”

  “Come in,” a rather cross-sounding voice called.

  Toby was ushered into a cramped office with a small desk, tiny glass window, and a couple of chairs. Not that Fort Osage— crude as it was—really impressed. As the government factory, or trading and political embassy to the Osage nation, it served as a center of trade and ration distribution, as well as America’s outpost on the frontier.

  “Captain Eli Clemson,” the captain said, taking Toby’s salute before rising and offering his hand. “Welcome to Fort Osage.” Then he reseated himself, scanned Toby’s orders, and read the letter of introduction from General Clark. Clemson looked up.

  He tapped the orders, saying, “You come well recommended, Corporal. I am asked to provide you with every assistance. I’ve never met Jackson, but know him from his record. That William Clark speaks for you, however, carries a great deal of influence. So, who is this John Tylor? A British spy? And why is he headed upriver with Lisa’s expedition as a mere engage?”

  “Sir?”

  “It’s a simple question, Corporal. William Clark asks me to outfit you and your men to go chase this man up the Missouri. Provide you with supplies that might prove vital to this post’s survival and the defense of the western approaches to St. Louis in the event of an attack by either a British expedition or their Indian allies. Assuming, of course, they can unite the western tribes against us.”

  Clemson continued to tap the papers with an insistent finger. “So, explain to me how this man is a threat? As a mere engage, how can he act against the United States?”

  Toby experienced a tingling tightness in his chest. “Sir, I reckon I’m just the hunter. Ain’t my place to be asking no questions like that. The general wanted me to go find him, and bring him back. That’s all I know, sir.”

  “And if I refuse to supply you for this mad adventure?”

  The sense of panic was building. Having nothing better to fall back on, Toby snapped out another salute, saying, “Reckon I’ll foller my orders, sir. Me and Danford and Simms. We’ll just saddle up and ride on up the river.”

  “Sheer stubborn guts and stick-to-itness, eh, Corporal?” Captain Clemson asked with a thin smile. “Very well. I’ll issue the orders. But, Corporal, think this through. Know what you’re getting into. It might not have occurred to Jackson, but he’s sending you and your boys up the Missouri in late fall. Smack through the Kansas, the Otoe, the Ioway, the Omaha and Ponca, the Teton Dakota, and the Arikara. Some of the most dangerous Indian nations on earth. Not to mention that Robert Dickson— vile creature that he is—will be using his Santee Sioux contacts to turn the river tribes against us. The son of a bitch has already captured Michilimackinac, and he’s in the process of taking Detroit as we speak.”

  Toby frowned, licked his lips. “Sir, I got my orders.”

  Clemson nodded. “Corporal, I sincerely respect your dedication, but have you considered that what goes up the river, eventually comes down. As will this John Tylor when Manuel Lisa brings his expedition back next spring. You are welcome to bivouac here, augment my command for the time being, and capture your man when he shows up here with Lisa’s party next spring.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Toby couldn’t hel
p but salute again, figuring that doing so was the best way to keep the captain from getting mad. “But me and the boys, we got our orders.”

  Clemson raised his brows in defeat, handed the papers back, and said, “Your funeral, Corporal. See the quartermaster. Listen to his advice. Then stop at the interpreter’s cabin. He’ll have the latest news on what’s happening upriver.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Dismissed.”

  Toby grinned as his boots clumped on the hollow-sounding wooden floor. “Why, hell, this is turning out to be easy as chewing apple pie. Bet we have Tylor within the month.”

  CHAPTER 19

  They called it the Dsaa Ogwee, or Pretty River. It ran through the lowlands just north of the Red Fir Mountains. The rest of the world knew the creek as the Belle Fourche, and the mountains as the Black Hills, a name the latter had received because their thickly timbered slopes appeared black when seen from a distance across the plains.

  Gray Bear felt a distinct relief. He’d camped on this very spot before. Knew this bend in the stream’s course where it ran through uplifted beds of soft red rock, white gypsum, and darker brown and resistant sandstones.

  From the heights where Red Moon Man now kept watch on their backtrail, a man had a grand view of the highest peak down south in the Black Hills. And looking north, he could see far into the broken uplands and plains with their occasional patches of pines, buffalo berry, and rolling grass.

  A hand of time’s ride to the south was the ancient buffalo trap. A curious hole on the crest of a low hill. Steep sided, it had been used for generations. A place where, if the buffalo runners were careful enough, and the hunt well planned, entire herds of bison could be slowly worked into position, then stampeded up the drive lines. If the stone cairns, called “dead men,” were placed right, if the people were courageous enough where they stood behind them, waving blankets, the bison would be running full out as they crested the hill, expecting to escape over the other side. They would have no warning as the ground dropped away; in a mass they would tumble into the pit.